Dr Jitendra Nath Pande, One Of India's Top Respiratory Illness Specialists, Dies Of COVID-19

One of the top respiratory diseases specialists in India, Dr. Jitendra Nath Pande has lost his battle to COVID-19, the deadly respiratory illness that is wreaking havoc around the world.

Dr. JN Pande, the former Director and Professor of Pulmonology at the All India Institute Of Medical Science (AIIMS) New Delhi died at his residence on Saturday. Both Pande and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 earlier in the week and were in home isolation.

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According to doctors, Dr. Pande had comorbidities and died in sleep, possibly due to a cardiac arrest. Following Pande's death, his wife has been shifted to the AIIMS for treatment.

"We were following him up regularly and he said he was improving. Yesterday, he had his dinner and went off to sleep and then passed away in sleep possibly because of an acute cardiac event," said AIIMS Director Dr. Randeep Guleria.

The 79-year-old was considered as one of the best in the country when it comes to lung-related illnesses. Knowledge and humility can co-exist and Dr. Pande was an epitome of that. He was an excellent human being and it is a great loss to the medical fraternity. AIIMS family will miss him the most because he joined AIIMS as an MBBS student and retired as the head of the department of medicine,¡± Guleria, who was also one of his students at AIIMS said.

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Dr. Pande is regarded as was the architect of making the Pulmonology Department at AIIMS New Delhi what it is today and had served as its HOD for several years. After his retirement in 2003, Dr. Pande who had authored hundreds of papers on respiratory medicine had joined the Sitaram Bhartia Institute of Science and Research and worked there as a senior consultant in the Respiratory Medicine department.

"He was a legendary physician who had taught many practicing doctors at AIIMS and continued to mentor physicians even after joining this hospital. What was remarkable was that most difficult cases would come to him," said the institute's Director Abhishek Bhartia.

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The exact number of doctors who have died in the country due to COVID-19 is unclear. It is believed that since the outbreak began over a dozen doctors have lost their lives in India due to the illness. According to reports, some 548 doctors, nurses, and paramedics across the country have been tested positive for the infection so far. In most of the cases, the frontline workers were infected by asymptomatic patients or due to attending patients without proper protective equipment.